My 1056th Don Mattingly card

I received my 1056th different Don Mattingly card in the mail today. It’s a special card because it’s one of the 13 cards that I needed in my quest to own every Mattingly card from his playing days. I hadn’t found any of them on eBay, or anywhere else online, for the last couple of months. When I found this one on eBay recently, I bought it in a heartbeat. The card is a “gold signature” parallel card of the “Traditional Threads” subset of 1996 Collector’s Choice:

I really liked the way that Upper Deck did the parallels for Collector’s Choice. They had two levels of parallels with facsimile signatures on them. There were silver signature cards and gold signature cards. You can correct me if I’m remembering incorrectly, but I believe that the silver signatures were inserted in every pack and there was one gold signature inserted in every box. That makes the gold signatures tough to come by, especially 12 years later. In fact, this card hadn’t shown up on eBay in at least the last six months!

Speaking of Collector’s Choice, I’d like to see Upper Deck revive the brand. Collector’s Choice would certainly be a lot better than First Edition as Upper Deck’s entry-level product. Anything that has a different design and different photos than Upper Deck’s flagship set would be a huge improvement over First Edition.

Anyway, you can check out the list of the 12 Mattingly cards that I still need on my Don Mattingly Collection page. If you can help me find any of them, I would be extremely grateful!